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Wednesday, 23 September 2015

My initial impressions of
MGSV weren’t great. Before I’d even started the game I had to
skip through what seemed like an endless list of ‘online
information’, including reports of game breaking bugs and what not
to do at specific points in order to stop the game from totally
f**king up.

It seems these issues have
been resolved in a recent patch, but it’s not the most reassuring
thing to see when you start up a new game you just paid 45 quid for.
It also doesn’t help that the game has a habit of crashing on
start-up when trying to connect to its servers. Thankfully, once you
get beyond the initial start-up and information screens, the game
runs flawlessly.

On a technical level, MGSV
is very impressive. I’m playing with everything cranked up to max
and I’m getting a constant 60FPS. In the 20 hours I’ve sunk into
the game so far, I’ve not seen it dip once. I’ve also not hit any
bugs or glitches, or experienced a single in-game crash.

I wouldn’t say it’s
quite the best looking open world game I’ve ever played, but it
looks pretty damn fine with some impressive scenery, character and
environment models. This isn’t a great surprise, however,
considering we’ve already had a ‘preview’ of MGSV in terms of
graphics, gameplay and technical performance in the form of Ground
Zeroes.

GZ was a very limited slice
of MGSV and looks, plays and performs almost identically. I was,
however, pleased to see that they’ve really upped the view distance
in MGSV, as this was one of my main issues with GZ – particularly
when observing locations at range to tag enemy guards. If you’ve
read my GZ review you’ll know I quite enjoyed it from a gameplay
perspective, although I questioned the value of such limited content.

That’s not a criticism I
could make about MGSV, at least so far. Because from what I’ve
currently seen, MGSV is packed with content. Even if you only focus
on primary missions and objectives, there’s a lot of hours of play
to be had. But with additional core objectives and numerous side ops
to complete, not to mention a high degree of mission replay value,
MGSV gives you a hell of a lot of value.

The game opens with a
tutorial prologue chapter which I didn’t really enjoy. The first
10-15 minutes are great, but the rest of it is badly paced and simply
not very fun to play. I was glad when it was over. But even once I’d
jumped into the first proper missions, I still wasn’t quite sure
I’d like MGSV. It’s a game I took a good 8 hours or so to really
warm to.

Part of the problem, for
me, is that you’re very limited early on in the game in terms of
available content. I understand the need to ease the player into new
features one at a time, but it does make the first few hours of MGSV
feel quite restrictive. You feel like you’re locked into an
extended tutorial which gets a little irritating.

But slowly, MGSV opens up
and lets you play with its toys. And once it does, it’s great fun!
You have primary missions which, if you only focus on core
objectives, take anywhere from 15-30 minutes to complete, depending
on how you approach them. These missions also have multiple
additional objectives. They don’t quite take place in the ‘open
world’ as such, but within a locked ‘zone’ of it.

But you can visit the open
world any time you wish and this is where you’ll find the side ops.
You don’t get graded on these missions and there’s only a handful
you can replay, but there does seem to be a lot
of them. Mission variety could be considered something of an issue,
as your objectives, primary or not, will usually be to eliminate or
extract a specific target – be it a person or object. It’ll be
interesting to see how/if the game introduces new mission types or
mixes the formula up.

And honestly, outside of
the missions, I’ve not felt any great desire to simply explore the
open world because the missions do a good job of taking you to every
location as you progress. So far, missions have taken me to various
locations multiple times for different objectives, which can get a
little repetitive, but also encourages an alternative approach.

And that’s really where
the fun in MGSV is – the freedom the player has to approach
missions as they choose. Although limited early on, you’ll begin to
unlock all manner of weapons, tools and equipment. It’s like a
fantastic toy box which always has something new to discover.
Although top ranking on core missions requires a more stealth based
approach, you can replay these missions as much as you want to try
various weapons and tactics.

Combat is a viable strategy
and a lot of fun, if perhaps, as I said in my GZ review, a little too
easy. MGSV is a game that requires a degree of player investment to
make the most of the tools on offer. It encourages and rewards
creativity with some of the most fun sandbox gameplay I’ve seen.
The first time I unlocked the extraction balloon, I must have spent 2
hours replaying the first mission capturing every soldier I could
find.

The stealth gameplay of
MGSV is also great fun, perhaps even more so than a combat based
approach. Sneaking into a base, planting charges, extracting a
prisoner or target and then sneaking out without raising a single
alarm is very satisfying. It’s also great fun when things don’t
quite go to plan and all hell breaks loose, which is why it’s
advisable to have a back-up plan.

Simply in terms of its
gameplay I’ve been having a real blast with MGSV so far. It took a
little while to get going but once it did I was thoroughly hooked. So
what are my current issues with the title?

The first is the story
stuff. The prologue and a few missions have this odd, almost
supernatural element to them which feels very out of place. Now, as
I’ve mentioned before, I’m not very aware of the MGS series in
terms of characters or plot, so maybe this is something that’s a
normal part of the series. I really don’t know. It just, so far at
least, doesn’t feel like quite right. Other than that, I’ve not
really played far enough to say much more.

We also have the Mother
Base system, which is where you recruit personnel and develop new
items. I’ve still not unlocked everything at MB, so I’ll reserve
my judgement on it until the review, but at the moment it feels like
a bit of a wasted opportunity, as the actual base is just a big,
empty lot of nothing.

Okay, I’d better wrap
this up. From what I’ve played so far, MGSV is a very impressive
title. Despite my few issues, if it can maintain this level
throughout the rest of the experience, we might just have another
contender for my Game of the Year.

Saturday, 19 September 2015

I’m not expecting to post
many reviews between now and the end of the year. The few games I’m
planning to cover will each take a lot of time to complete – MGSV,
Mad Max and Fallout 4. In fact, I’m playing MGSV already and
despite putting nearly 10 hours into it, I’m only 4% complete
according to the stats.

I was in a bit of a dilemma
whether to get Mad Max or MGSV first. I was more interested in Mad
Max in terms of the licence and setting rather than the gameplay.
MGSV, on the other hand, I was more interested in purely from a
gameplay standpoint thanks to my experience with Ground Zeroes. But I
can’t honestly say I was all that interested in the narrative,
world or character aspects.

In the end, I decided to
get MGSV. I should have a First Impressions post of MGSV up soon. I’m
not sure how long the full review will take because there’s a lot
to the game. Once that’s out of the way, the plan is to move onto
Mad Max, which hopefully I’ll have time to complete and review
before Fallout 4 drops in November.

I can’t say I have high
hopes for the title though. I mean, I expect it’ll be good in the
same way Skyrim was good. And I’ll probably end up sinking a few
hundred hours into it. But I just have this sad feeling that, like
Skyrim, it will also be a rather shallow experience that will require
mods to flesh out and fix. I hope I’m wrong.

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Dying Light is a
first person zombie survival (sort of) game set in the fictional city
of Harran. Harran is a city under quarantine after the outbreak of a
zombie virus. You play as Kyle Crane, a not very interesting good guy
sent into the quarantine zone to track down a not very interesting
bad guy who has stolen a secret file or something.

The city is divided into
two maps, the latter of which you’ll unlock through story
progression. Aside from that, you’re free to explore the world as
you please, with only a handful of areas on each map inaccessible for
story based objectives. You have the expected core quests which take
you across each of the two maps as you try to survive and complete
your mission. In addition to this you have a variety of side content
and quests.

The core story quests do a
good job of pushing you to every area of the city, both at day and
night. These are fairly enjoyable and offer a decent level of
variety, at least during the first half of the game. Unfortunately,
the second half sees the story quests frequently devolve into dull
shoot-outs in rooms full of bad guys with dumb AI.

The story is okay, I guess.
It’s just sort of there, pushing you along, but you never really
care too much. The main villain is suitably…villainous, I suppose,
but not very interesting. And neither, really, is Crane. It’s all a
little bland and far too serious. It’s really in the side content
that Dying Light shines in terms of story and character.

The side content ranges
from multi-stage, elaborate missions, to simple ‘go collect 10
herbs’. Yes. Because video game. There’s also a lot of challenges
to complete based around movement or combat. I was worried the side
content would be a lot of nothing. A long list of fetch quests that
only serve to pad the game rather than enhance and enrich the
experience. But that’s really not the case. Even the ‘collection’
quests can be quite fun, as you try to track down specific items,
such as raiding pharmacies for medical supplies.

The side content is also
where the characters come to life. The main story is a little too
serious, but there’s a lot of humour and quirky characters to be
found in the side stuff. I recall one escort quest as I guided a
salesman through the city to deliver his product, all the while
yelling NO REFUNDS! as he smashed zombies in the face.

A lot of the side content
has this tongue in cheek style to it. Even Crane comes to life as he
sarcastically agrees to help people with all manner of nonsense. It
gives the game a wonderful sense of fun, which is certainly reflected
in its gameplay. It’s why the main story stuff doesn’t quite work
because tonally, it feels at odds with the rest of the game.

Dying Light has a Mirror’s
Edge style parkour system for movement, which is also tied into
combat. It’s not quite a ‘realistic’ system – I’m pretty
sure falling 100ft into a pile of trash bags isn’t something you’d
just walk away from. But the system makes traversing Harran a lot of
fun as you leap and climb, and the city is designed in such a way
that allows you to maintain your momentum.

This movement gets even
more fun when you unlock the grappling hook, and Dying Light suddenly
transforms into the best first person Spider-Man game you’ll
probably ever play. The grappling hook, mechanically, makes no sense
in the way that it works, but it transforms your movement throughout
the city in a way that’s so damn fun you don’t want to go back.
It also, it should be noted, make movement throughout the city far
too easy, but we’ll return to the matter of difficulty later.

The movement system also
has a combat element. As you progress through the game, killing
zombies and completing quests, you’ll level up and earn points to
purchase new skills revolving around survival, movement and combat.
You have passive skills such as increased health or resistance to
damage, but also new abilities like the aforementioned grappling hook
or shoulder charge.

You can add a tackle to
your slide ability, or gain the ability to boost yourself off a
zombie and into the air. There’s also a brilliant running drop
kick, which you can use to send a zombie flying into a group,
knocking them down like skittles. All these abilities make traversing
the world a lot of fun, so even when the quests have you running
between A & B you’ll have plenty of ways to amuse yourself en
route.

In addition to simply
kicking enemies about, you also have a variety of weapons. Guns are
in the game, but ammo is kept somewhat limited in terms of what you
can carry. And it’s always worth carrying a rifle to deal with the
rather dull ‘shooty’ bits. Against zombies, however, you’ll
stick with melee weapons ranging from a plank with a nail, to a
baseball bat, to an ornamental sword.

Combat has a wonderful
sense of weight and impact. There’s also a decent dismemberment
system as you chop zombies in half, or cut off their arms or head.
Fighting zombies has never felt quite so satisfying – but also
dangerous, at least during the early stages of the game. Zombies walk
just fast enough to swamp you if you get stuck in a crowd, and they
genuinely feel like a threat.

You also have ‘special’
zombie types to contend with. There are fast zombies, which can
pursue you across the rooftops, but also large, lumbering brutes.
These are probably the most irritating to fight as their hit
detection is so messy. Several times I was ‘hit’ and knocked down
by these guys even though I was several feet away, or had completely
side stepped their attack. There’s also the exploding zombies which
annoyingly lurk right behind doorways and kill you instantly.

I’ve never really been a
fan of ‘special’ zombie types like this. I didn’t like them in
Zombi and I don’t particularly care for them here. Even the
‘volatiles’, which only emerge at night, proved to be more
irritating than scary. Throughout the world you’ll find traps you
can activate to lure or kill zombies, and you can also carry and
craft distractions which you’ll find useful if you need to move a
large group away from an objective.

There’s a whole system of
crafting in the game but it’s not something you’ll really use often, especially the weapon crafting. The idea is that you can modify
existing weapons to carry particular effects such as burning or
toxic, but I honestly never really bothered with it. If it was
modifying weapons to say, add spikes to a bat or a silencer to a
pistol, I’d have been more interested. As it is, the weapon upgrade
and modification system just feels a little worthless, especially
considering how quickly you break or discard your weapons.

Dying Light has a day/night
cycle. The night is when the volatiles emerge. I think it’s meant
to encourage a more ‘stealth’ based approach, but it’s often
easier to just leg it through any trouble. There are only a handful
of missions that require you to venture out at night anyway, which
I’m kind of glad for. As I mentioned, I found the volatiles more
irritating than scary.

Difficulty is certainly an
issue as you progress. The game can be quite punishing early on, as
your weapons are weak and won’t have yet unlocked many of your
skills. This is where Dying Light really feels more survival focused.
You have to stay on the move, not make too much noise, and tackle
zombies with care. But as you progress, the game becomes far too
easy, as you gain access to weapons and abilities that make you
practically unstoppable.

It’s certainly fun, but
the game loses that early sense of panic as you find yourself
surrounded by a horde, or have to figure out how to lure a large
group of zombies away. The early game of Dying Light really does
capture that desperate struggle for survival quite nicely. Zombies
are tough to fight more than one at a time, and night has a genuine
sense of menace about it. It’s a shame that you lose this feeling
as the game progresses, even if it becomes far more fun to play.

It’s a strange thing, I
guess. I was having less fun at the beginning with my limited skills
and weak weapons, but I was also far more engaged by every moment
because there was a genuine sense of danger. Later, when I was
upgraded and tooled up, I had far more fun, but there was no more
sense of risk. The game does turn into something of a carnival
sandbox as you slay zombies by the dozen in new and creative ways.

I would have liked more of
the survival element to shine throughout the entire experience,
particularly with The Tower – your main safe house. I’d have
liked an almost State of Decay type system to recruit new survivors,
unlock new facilities, or gather resources. As it is, The Tower is
something you visit on occasion for story reasons or to sell stuff.
It’s far too static an environment to make you care about the
people living there. Even undertaking quests to support the The Tower
doesn’t feel like it results in any tangible benefits or effects.

Overall, Dying Light is one
of the best zombie themed games you can play. Simply in terms of its
gameplay, it’s great. Where it lacks is with its largely bland
characters and central story. You’ll have a lot of fun in the
world, but you won’t ever really care about why you’re there.

I’m also a little
disappointed by the lack of survival elements, as the game becomes
far too easy as you progress and you no longer feel any sense of
danger. It’s also a shame so many of the latter missions just turn
the game into a mediocre FPS. Also, the final couple of missions are
pretty lacklustre, and the game ends with an extremely lame QTE boss
fight. Because we all love those. That said, if you like your zombie
games, Dying Light is certainly worth checking out, if just for the
sandbox gameplay alone.

Thursday, 3 September 2015

I didn’t know about this
beta until it was nearly over, so I only put in about 6 hours of
play, and the first of those was spent trying to make the game not
look like total shit. The default graphic and control settings of
this beta made it look like a blurry, washed out mess and handle like
utter ass. Not exactly the best first impressions.

The graphic options are
limited. Not terrible, but limited. But once I’d tweaked
everything, I got the game running pretty smoothly and looking…okay.
It’s not a bad looking game, but it’s not exactly going to blow
you away either. Technical performance seems solid, however. I never
noticed any frame drops and I only experienced one crash.

I’m not sure if I’ve
written about my history with the CoD franchise. Well, there’s not
much to say. I played and enjoyed the original CoD 1 & 2, but the
only other game I’ve played in the series is MW2. I liked that
game, mostly for its co-op mode, but I found the MP a bit of a mess.
Fun, but a mess.

Jumping into the BOPS3 beta, it was interesting how instantly familiar it felt. I’ve not
actually played MW2 for a long while, but this didn’t really feel
any different. Movement, thanks to the wall running, boost jump and
slide, feels far more zippy, but aside from that, it doesn’t seem
like much has changed.

Which I guess is what
people like. I mean, it’s not like CoD games don’t sell so it’s
not surprising they take a ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach. Just
like MW2, this is a very fast paced MP where you’re quick to die
and quick to kill. It’s really a game of who shoots first, or
rather, who spots who first. One short burst, and you’re dead. But
you repsawn nearly instantly, and you’re never more than a few
seconds away from the action.

Weapon recoil is
non-existent. A lot of the time you can fire from the hip, even at
mid-range, and still maintain a decent level of accuracy. Matches
last anywhere from 5-10 minutes. They go by in a flash, the screen
popping out with all sorts of different badges and shit whenever you
seem to do anything. It’s not too distracting, but I’d rather
they shove all that stuff into the post-match analysis.

It’s all very flashy,
slick and fast paced and undeniably addictive and fun, at least for
the few hours I put into it. But am I interested in buying it?
Well…probably not. Like MW2, the combat has a system of rewarding
those playing well by giving them weapons and abilities that can
result in a complete domination.

In one game I racked up a
few quick kills and unlocked my ‘special’ weapon for my chosen
class. This is essentially a ‘one-shot’ weapon that racked me up
even more kills and allowed me to unlock another killstreak – a
missile barrage. The map I was playing on was mostly outdoors and my
missiles killed the entire enemy team.

There’s no great skill to
it. It’s a ‘rich get richer’ system and it can make matches
become very one sided very quickly. I guess it’s part of the
formula though, and people like it. And yeah, it’s kind of fun
raining death down on everyone, but it still feels a bit cheap to me.
So the combat isn’t quite to my taste. I don’t hate it. I had fun
with it. But it’s hard to take it too seriously.

In terms of modes, I tried
everything on offer, but not to an extensive degree. You have the
standard team deathmatch, a domination mode, capture the flag etc.
It’s pretty much what you’d expect. The only really interesting
modes were an ‘escort the robot’ thing, which I had some fun
with, and a ‘satellite uplink’ thing, which actually involves
grabbing a ‘ball’ and trying to score in your opponents ‘goal’.
That was pretty hectic, but fun. As you’d expect, the majority of
players just stick to Team DM though, so all the other modes weren’t
very active.

The game has a level system
for each weapon which allows you to unlock different attachments. I
really hate this, because it means whenever you want to try out a new
weapon you have to grind out all the different sights and shit all
over again. I don’t
mind progression based systems in shooters and unlocking different
weapons, classes, abilities or killstreaks is okay with me. But
attachments? Forevery
gun? Couldn’t they at least limit it to weapon classes? And in
terms of weapons, the selection is solid but not particularly
inspired. Like I said, if it ain’t broke…

My main issue with this
beta is the maps. The maps are small and bland. Their design is fine,
but aesthetically they’re just so generic and dull. Actually, their
design isn’t quite fine, because none of those on offer in the beta
feel suited to the wall running and boost jump abilities. There are
only limited places where you can use these abilities. In a game like
Titanfall, its maps were designed around its movement system. Here,
they feel like an afterthought.

Several times when trying
to boost onto a rooftop I found myself hitting an invisible wall,
even though I had sufficient height. There are also many places when
you think you can boost over some rocks or a low wall but instead hit
an invisible barrier that knocks you back. It’s bloody ridiculous.
The slide ability seems like a great addition…until you completely
lose momentum at the end of it. The movement isn’t fluid enough,
and trying to chain together wall runs (in the few places where it’s
possible) just feels awkward.

So, what are we left with?
A game with uninspired weapons. Uninspired maps. A bland, generic
aesthetic. Basic, repetitive combat that lacks any serious skill or
strategy. An irritatingly tedious unlock system that makes you
repeatedly grind for the same equipment. And a movement system that
feels out of place in a game not appropriately designed for it.

I still had some fun with
it though, I must admit, but it doesn’t look like BOPS3 will be the
CoD to bring me back to the series. It must seem like I’m shitting
on it a bit, and I must say that I really don’t think it’s bad,
just…very by the numbers. I think that’s the best way to describe
it. It plays it safe with its formula, doesn’t take any risks and
just ends up being rather mundane and forgettable.